Many believe that the welfare state is the phenomena of the past history in the West and that globalization and liberalism during the last 30 years have tremendously changed the world. This is one of the reasons why developing countries are cautious about wide and deep implementation of such welfare elements as state social security measures. What is your view about the present and future of the welfare state?
I agree with John. For a recent book on different trajectories of welfare state and capitalist development, see Integrating Varieties of Capitalism and Welfare State Research: A Unified Typology of Capitalisms, by Martin Schröder.
One might ask "what is the European social Model?", but if one does, one will get many answers. Of course, Draghi says it is dead - see http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203960804577241221244896782
Good morning to everyone.
In the countries of southern Europe this debate has been established long time ago. At the end of the nineties there are authors that state that you can not talk about welfare completaly, or why welfare states is a reality in some countries but not everywhere. And within those countries there are considerable differences amalgam.
There seems to be a typology of welfare regimes, the most accepted the Ferrera (2005), Bambra et alt. (2011).
For the South, the great feature was underdeveloped welfare models, with a great weight of the family in the provision of services, more focused on fundamental aspects like health, education and attention to unemployment. Furthermore, all legal level and regulate other fields of protection, never intended to develop economic resources.
Yesterday the president of Spain, which along with Italy and Greece have suffered the consequences of the last great crisis of the capitalist economic system in EU. He was glad of the various reforms because the country was growing at 0.6% while Germany, France and Italy are contracting. The president of Spain, representing the Popular Party that embraces economic liberalism, mentioned that the only way to continue growing was to reform, reform, and reform. Reforming at the style of the Southern countries means cut and sim the welfare state and the global privision of social protection: increasing job insecurity, cut taxes for the wealthiest classes and fall on the more modest weight classes. An increase in inequality.
Still, I think it is early to say that the welfare state is disappearing. Now also, the advice of the IMF, Ecofin and the political parties that govern European countries are proposing the orbit prescribed neoliberal neoliberal crisis. But not all countries.
there is anew book out about the Sweden - see
http://www.e-elgar.com/bookentry_main.lasso?id=15717
- which describes "the capitalist welfare state"
Hello dear colleagues. This is a very interesting discussion. Concerning the future of the welfare states, I think there is much ideology behind the current public and political debates. If we consider the development of political parties in Europe, we see some important parallels to the welfare state developments. In the 1990s, after the fall of the iron curtain, the parties went more and more to the centre and many European politicians from all political couleurs started to claim the social systems to be too expensive. It was a time when the ideological cleavages between social democrats, conservatives and liberals seemed to dissolve in terms of economy. The arguments for austerity went hand in hand with the rise of neoliberalism and globalisation (WTO, etc). And it also went hand in hand with a rise of the gap between the rich and the poor in Western Europe. Only in the last years, there is a kind of ideological comeback of political discourse which is reflected in the critiques of the neoliberal markets and in the rise of anti-system parties from the left and the right - both criticising this gap with similar arguments but with different solutions (internationalist solutions by most left parties like Syriza; nationalist solutions by the right like Front National etc.) The future of the welfare state, in my opinion, depends on the capacity of supranational institutions to reduce the gap and to suprantionalize the welfare state.
If you think outside the West, this may perhaps for the first time in history, millions of the poorest people on the planet experienced something like the welfare state. The general upliftment, that is now happening in India, China, Brazil and so on, is on an unprecedented scale; however limited it may be. Behind the rhetoric of neoliberalism, it is a matter of fact that these states continue to pursue large scale welfare measures for good.
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